In this heartbreaking novel, Willy Vlautin offers up the delicate balance of beauty and sadness. The three main characters are not exactly intertwined, more like tangentially connected in the way all lives touch upon similar struggles and experiences.

Leroy, Freddie and Pauline are all struggling to stay afloat, to break free to overcome their demons – emotional, spiritual and physical. Vlautin does a wonderful job of presenting their circumstances and strengths even in light of their challenges.

“The first thing I learned is that you can be and do whatever you want. You just have to get up each morning and try to get there.”

Most of the writing is straightforward, almost like an essay designed to tug at our heartstrings. I appreciated how the author let me come to know Freddie and Pauline slowly and honestly. But, then there’s Leroy, the injured Iraq war vet, struggling with a debilitating brain injury. His opening scenes are dramatic and terrifically compelling. Then, most of his story is told as a semi sci-fi story taking place in his fractured mind. While I admire the writing skills in this approach, it severed some of the emotional connection for me. I found myself glancing ahead to see how many of these pages I had to get through until I returned to what, for me, was the “real” story.

Overall, I loved how much I came to care about these characters and their journeys. I rooted for them and cried for them. I felt how easily our lives can slip beyond our grasp. I practically clapped at the ending, which trusts readers to form their own conclusions.

Without melodrama, he tells a compelling story, one that could be mine or my neighbor’s. Recommend.

I already feel like I am drawing to the end of my #100HappyDays Challenge. It hasn’t really been a challenge at all as I am now in the habit of stopping to capture a moment of happiness, which is the ultimate challenge. I am truly, consciously, intentionally aware of happiness and I am very thankful.

#100happydays began as an Instagram exercise in gratitude, a challenge to take a moment to be purposefully thankful for the many happy moments that make up my days.

Because this is an Instagram project, I am limiting myself to something I can photograph. Likewise, I use very few words to describe these images.

Day 61: Watching these two boys cheer on the @nazarethlgp Roadrunners! It’s so great to be able to take them to work with me and get them excited about high school. #GoNaz — at Nazareth Academy.

Day 62: Sunday evening on the deck with the perfect combo — beer, pretzels & book. Such a great way to spend an hour. #amreading — at Bistro 3513.

While I don’t traditionally participate in Top Ten Tuesday, September is Library Card Sign-up Month according the American Library Association. Since I seriously could not live without my local library, I decided to try my own Top Ten list:

10. It’s FREE.
Who doesn’t like something for nothing? I guess technically I pay taxes to support my library, but that doesn’t really count does it? I read around 100 books per year. Add to that the books my husband and kids read and you’ll have some idea of how quickly we’d go broke without the library.

9. Readers Advisory
If you’ve never visited the RA Department at your library, don’t walk…RUN! These are likely the smartest, most patient, most helpful, best-read people in the building. They like to talk about books and authors and genres and pretty much everything else literary.

7. Inter-library loan
My reading interests are varied and far-reaching. I could never expect my city library to have every title I want to read, but even if they don’t own it, they’ll find it for me. I love showing up to the circulation desk to find a stack of titles I’ve been waiting to read.

6. Browsing
The opposite of #7, but just as satisfying, I can get lost in the stacks just pulling titles off the shelf. Or, I can visit Browser’s Corner for staff picks, or the great themed displays to maybe try something outside my comfort zone. (Did I mention it’s all free?!?)

5. Age-appropriate resources
The library (not the internet) is always our first stop for assigned research papers. Yes, I know I can wiki or google any subject, but it’s not all appropriate to a 4th grader. Children’s departments have an awesome selection of age-appropriate encyclopedias and reference materials.

4. It’s online
While I don’t buy into that hooey that paper books are facing extinction, my library values e-books as well as printed copies. I could, in fact, do all of my library business from ordering to check-out to returns without leaving my house if I read electronically. As it is, I could request and renew my titles without stepping into the building (but then I would miss out on #9).

3. Holds without hassles
Try not to be jealous because I think this program is unique to my library. I can provide my RA Department (again #9) with a list of authors whose work I like. Any new releases by that author will AUTOMATICALLY be held for me. This is so miraculous and it’s unlimited. I don’t have to keep track of when the latest book is coming out or be the 50th person on the waiting list. I have the latest releases within weeks of publication. Amazing.

2. Book Club
For 13 years, the only date set in stone on our family calendar is the monthly book club hosted by my library. The library provides all the books, makes the coffee, feeds us and runs the discussion (so that we actually talk about the book). Not only have I read titles I would have never chosen otherwise, I’ve come to know and become friends with people I wouldn’t have met without my library.

“There are small blessings, tiny ones that come unbidden and make a hard day one sigh lighter.”

Good writing is one such blessing. I ordered this book based on my mom’s rave and spent a wonderful few days entranced by Mira Jacob’s wonderful debut novel. It’s the rare book that continues to get better as it goes on, but in this case I couldn’t put the story down once I was into the second half.

The plot is nothing remarkably new. Amina is a thirty-something who has to return home to deal with a sick parent. Of course her family is fractured, with buried secrets, tragedy and misunderstandings; but on top of the predictable, Jacobs layers an Indian immigrant’s story. Then, she goes a step further, through Amina’s career as a photographer, to highlight the ideas of isolation and belongingness. Without being overwrought or sappy, she breathes life into this family and into her themes in a compelling way.

“It wasn’t that she doubted their love or intentions, but the weight of that love would be no small thing.”

I understood Amina, but more importantly, I liked her. And I adored all the surrounding characters, especially her parents. They start out as the typical stereotypes of overbearing mother and ambitious professional father, but their stories evolve to become complex and emotionally touching.

“Why is it that fathers so often ensure the outcome they are trying to avoid? Is their need to dominate so much stronger than their instinct to protect? Did Thomas know, Amina wondered as she watched him, that he had just done the human equivalent of a lion sinking his teeth into his own cub?”

Amina’s relationship with her parents held special resonance for me as they faced many quality-of-life decisions. What is real? What is right? Who controls the outcome? All of these questions (and more) come to play in very honest ways, bringing me to tears on several occasions.

Across the board, Jacobs does a terrific job of fleshing out every character she introduces, admirable given the fact that this novel stretches almost 500 pages, three decades and two continents. As the story comes to its beautiful ending, I found myself completely satisfied.

It’s been a bad week for the NFL. Injuries, scandals and even arrests are nothing new for the multi-billion dollar sports/entertainment business, but this particular week seemed to tip the scales and, in our home, broke one little boy’s heart.
The news of Adrian Peterson’s arrest on charges of child abuse rocked our youngest son hard. His fascination with “AP” has become almost a private joke among family and friends. Certainly he’s withstood his fair share of jeers and comments about wearing #28’s jersey, or the giant AP Fathead above his bed. He even has an AP pillow.

We had no choice but to tell him the facts, at least as much as we know. The news is crawling across every station. We wanted him to hear from us and be able to ask questions. My husband held him close as our little boy absorbed the story of a man he admired beating a child with a tree branch. It’s truly terrible. Later our son went up to his bed and just stared at Peterson’s image, tears in his eyes.

I know there are people out there thinking “Shame on you” for letting a child idolize a sports star. (I know this because I philosophically agree.) It’s just not that simple. Of course we try to keep it in perspective. We’re always talking about the irony that guys playing with balls are making millions of dollars while teachers and police and paramedics struggle to earn a fair wage. We don’t call athletes heroes. We talk honestly about cheaters and drug users and the culture of sports entertainment.

But have you ever tried to dissuade a child from his passion? I don’t care if it’s dinosaurs or animals or spaceships or football, when a boy has an obsession, it’s tamper-proof. Years ago, our son watched AP run, and smile, and do his dance, and he decided on his favorite athlete. He has since waited through injury and withstood the haters to cheer on AP week after week.

Now he’s crushed. And he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s in his own head and his own heart grappling with disappointment.
I’ll leave it to others to write about the culture of violence surrounding football, the illusion of impenetrability that accompanies celebrity, and the potentially deeper/darker issues plaguing Adrian Peterson. The best I can do is go and offer open, loving arms to my hurting baby boy.

With one week (and impatiently counting) until the film release of This is Where I Leave You, I thought I would suggest, beg, demand that any of you who have not yet read Jonathan Tropper’s outstanding dark comedic novel should do so before seeing the movie.

Need more persuasion? Here’s my review from August 3, 2012.

I can’t remember the last time a book made me laugh out loud, but this one did. It also made me blush, got me a little choked up at times, and introduced me to another author whose work I will actively seek.

Forced to take part in a traditional Jewish 7-day shiva for his father, Judd Foxman ping-pongs between his hilariously dysfunctional siblings, his larger than life newly widowed mother, and the agony of his failed marriage. By using the shiva as a tactic to force intimacy (or at least proximity) on his characters, Tropper provides the perfect background for high drama.

“Childhood feels so permanent, like it’s the entire world, and then one day it’s over and you’re shoveling wet dirt onto your father’s coffin, stunned at the impermanence of everything.”

Tropper brilliantly avoids overplaying his dramatic hand. Instead he inserts some borderline slapstick comedy for Judd and his family. I wasn’t sure in the opening chapter, which contains the funniest version of marital infidelity I’ve ever read (burning testicles and all), if Tropper could maintain that level of pitch-perfect dark comedy, but he does.

He finds the humor in life’s tragic situations, without ever lessening their importance.

“…the first thing you do at the end is reflect on the beginning. Maybe it’s some form of reverse closure, or just the basic human impulse toward sentimentality, or masochism, but as you stand there shell-shocked in the charred ruins of your life, your mind will invariably go back to the time when it all started. And even if you didn’t fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will feel like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benetar or The Cure on the soundtrack.”

As I was reading, I could picture the film version, cast with the finest 30-somethings in Hollywood, a kind of Big Chill for the 21st Century. I believe Tropper is already at work on an adaptation. I sure hope Hollywood doesn’t manage to wreck the brilliant balance of a little raunchy, a lot funny, and perfectly heartfelt that Tropper has achieved.